Beschreibung:

GENEALOGICAL CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND TO EDWARD IV, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [England, 1466-67] A rare winged roll-codex – perhaps the unique example of this format to survive in its original form – completed during the Wars of the Roses to support the Yorkist right to the throne, with additions of the Tudor Kings Henry VII and Henry VIII; with ownership inscriptions of Sir Edward Coke, the greatest of Elizabethan and Jacobean jurists. 8600 x 390mm overall, including the final added part-membrane, i+15+i membranes, folded to make i+38+i ‘pages’, each unfolded opening approx. 455 x 390mm, written on one side only with up to four columns of 43 lines of text per ‘page’ in black ink in an English bookhand, two large illuminated initials with foliage sprays into the margin at the head of the text, a round miniature of Adam and Eve, link to the Ascension of Christ with a band of blue and gold, numerous two-line initials of gold flourished blue or blue flourished red, biblical names framed with brown or green, the ancestors of the Kings of England in blue and gold circles and the Kings of England from Brutus to Edward IV in red or blue circles topped with crowns of burnished gold, six diagrams (a few folds reinforced with vellum or paper strips, some slight creasing, smudging, marking and offsetting but the written and painted side generally in excellent condition). Lacking binding, the pastedowns, now backed with paper serve as upper and lower covers (edges of pastedowns with small nicks and nibbles, slight worming, reinforcing strip of upper pastedown detaching, backing paper soiled and defective). Provenance : Sir Edward Warner of Plumstead and Polsteadhall, Norfolk (1511-1565) his inscription recording the birth of his son Edward in 1547 inside front cover and an ownership inscription of 1558 inside rear cover. Warner was a household official and soldier under Henry VIII, and was restored to royal favour and office under Elizabeth I, including his appointment as Lieutenant of the Tower. His service to the crown continued after his retirement to his estates in Norfolk and he also acted as justice of the of the peace and MP. Predeceased by his sons he was succeeded by his brother Robert but one of the specific bequests in his will was ‘all my books of statutes and chronicles, and all my pedigrees of Kings or of any other person’, which he left to his nephew Henry — Henry Warner (c.1551-1616), lawyer and MP. In his will he appointed as supervisor his ‘good friend’ Sir Edward Coke — Sir Edward Coke (1553-1634): his signature beneath both Warner inscriptions. The leading lawyer and legal writer of his time, he was Attorney General to Elizabeth I and Chief Justice to James I. In disagreements with the Crown over the relative legal powers of the individual, Parliament and the King, Coke invoked Magna Carta as guaranteeing the Rights and Liberties of the individual through the supremacy of common law and the judiciary – ‘magna carta is such a fellow as he will have no sovereign’. His ideas on the Great Charter were crystallised in the second part of his most significant work, Institutes , which was published posthumously in 1642. Beyond their influence in England and the Civil War, Coke’s ideas lay behind the constitutional principles of the Founding Fathers of America — Pentrials of various dates include the name A M Robert — Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, sale from 26 February 1900 for five days: cutting from the catalogue sellotaped to front cover and adhesive lot label 441, bought Leighton for £3 — Frederick Neville Sutherland Leveson-Gower (1874-1969), British Liberal Unionist Party politician, grandson of George Sutherland Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland. By descent to the present owner. Content : This is one of an intriguing group of genealogical chronicles, named from the opening word of the prologue, which begins ‘ Considerans histories acre prolixitatem ’ , that are thought likely to ha